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Where, TIGER Line Data, but first look at Bruce's free software page. The map data is 2.6GBytes at 90% compression. Download the manual first, then and only if you are really going to do mapping software get the data. Better yet only get the data for one state and work with it first. I've been working with a small subset and using a 30GByte scratch space that feels a bit tight. My goal is to reduce it to CD-ROM size but still have a useable data set. Unfortunately I stalled out awhile back on it. I do have a mostly correct set of DB file table and appendix data entered. The errors are easy to spot, I just forgot where they were so the files aren't corrected. Once my life becomes stable again I plan on working on the size reduction again. Disk space was one of the factors that stalled me out.

According to The Open Source Definition:

The license may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software
distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such
sale.

So if you mean "free" as in $0 (gratis), yes. If something is open source you can't practically charge for the code, because people are able to get the same code for free. That's why the open source economy has become one of "who has the prettiest box, and the best tech support?" Code isn't worth paying for, to the open source zealot.

Of course, the title for this article is nothing but misleading. The Microsoft thing has nothing to do with "open source". It has only to do with them making portions of their source "available", which is a completely different story.

I think that you would have a hard time convincing Microsoft that Winamp is part of the operating system :).

Besides there is another license written by the FSF that is specifically targetted at this sort of application. It is the LGPL (for Lesser GPL) and it permits dynamic linking. The beautty is that if anyone makes modifications to your library and distributes them they will still be required to share the source code. This allows you to protect your investment in the library. On the other hand anyone will be free to link to your library from closed source projects (like Winamp).

If you are really interested in getting a handle on this particular issue (and being able to intelligently participate in License War Discussions is worth the price of entry) I would suggest reading the excellent article that Bruce Perens wrote about the Open Source Definition. Especially germane is the section titled "Analysis of Licenses and their Open Source Compliance." You can find it here.

Take care

There are several digitized maps available from the US Census and US Geological Survey. Typically they aren't available for download, but you can order them on CD's (a complete vector based map of the US is around 3GB). Bruce Perens put the TIGER map database online on his site at http://www.perens.com/FreeSoftware

So, it does exist. You just have to look.

Some guy named Chris

I'd like to point out a few problems with your comment.

The Gauntlet firewall published by Trusted Information Systems was not an Open Source program. It's what we call "disclosed source-code", and that's very important because that difference means that nobody had much reason to read it or work on it. The software license didn't provide them any incentive to do so - you would have only been fixing bugs in a program that somebody else has an exclusive right to sell. Who wants to be the unpaid employee of another company? With real Open Source, you have the same right to sell the program as anyone else, or to distribute it for free, for that matter, and thus you aren't some company's unpaid dupe. For an explanation of what Open Source is, see The Open Source Definition .

At the time of the Morris Internet worm, the BSD software distribution of which Sendmail is a part was under a restrictive license and required an expensive ATT Unix license before you could get the system. This is also not what we today know as Open Source. Besides, you are writing about the epochal Internet virus, and few people even considered Internet security before that event.

Yes, all compilers have a bootstrap problem. One can avoid it by compiling the compiler with another compiler, once in a while, and then compiling the result with itself. This method can also be used to detect the Trojan: compare the generated executable with one that doesn't have another compiler in its heritage - if there's a significant difference, look for a Trojan there.

Most users do not compile their own applications, but they get them from a trusted source who has compiled them and cryptographicaly signed them. You might not be aware that in all Linux distributions of any import, the packager does compile all programs. If there is a trojan slipped in, you can trace it to the person who compiled the program and bring charges if necessary.

And what good would it do anyone to grep through source code for strcpy()? We've already done that ourselves, and have fixed obvious problems.

Sure, it's no guarantee, but it's much better than the alternative, which lets Microsoft embed snide comments (if they really aren't trap-doors, embedding a trap-door would be as easy) in their software and have them undiscovered for years.

Thanks

Bruce Perens

billgates (75865)

Bill_Gates (1523)

Bill Gates (156)

Bill__Gates (94039)

Bill Gates III (111350)

bill gates1 (113843)

Bill-Gates BillGates@microsoft.com (129481)

and 7 Bruce Perens as well:

Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com (3872)

Bruce Perens. bruce@perens.com (123221)

Bruce_Perens bruce@perens.com (123485)

Bruce.Perens bruce@perens.com (124707)

BrucePerens (145774)

BrucePerens (149861)

! Bruce Perens (150447)

While the arguements could be made that no one would really think Bill Gates would be posting on Slashdot, I think it is pretty clear that Slashdot does not protect a persons idenity at all. (oh yeah there are several "CmdrTaco"s as well.

billgates (75865)

Bill_Gates (1523)

Bill Gates (156)

Bill__Gates (94039)

Bill Gates III (111350)

bill gates1 (113843)

Bill-Gates BillGates@microsoft.com (129481)

and 7 Bruce Perens as well:

Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com (3872)

Bruce Perens. bruce@perens.com (123221)

Bruce_Perens bruce@perens.com (123485)

Bruce.Perens bruce@perens.com (124707)

BrucePerens (145774)

BrucePerens (149861)

! Bruce Perens (150447)

While the arguements could be made that no one would really think Bill Gates would be posting on Slashdot, I think it is pretty clear that Slashdot does not protect a persons idenity at all. (oh yeah there are several "CmdrTaco"s as well.

billgates (75865)

Bill_Gates (1523)

Bill Gates (156)

Bill__Gates (94039)

Bill Gates III (111350)

bill gates1 (113843)

Bill-Gates BillGates@microsoft.com (129481)

and 7 Bruce Perens as well:

Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com (3872)

Bruce Perens. bruce@perens.com (123221)

Bruce_Perens bruce@perens.com (123485)

Bruce.Perens bruce@perens.com (124707)

BrucePerens (145774)

BrucePerens (149861)

! Bruce Perens (150447)

While the arguements could be made that no one would really think Bill Gates would be posting on Slashdot, I think it is pretty clear that Slashdot does not protect a persons idenity at all. (oh yeah there are several "CmdrTaco"s as well.

billgates (75865)

Bill_Gates (1523)

Bill Gates (156)

Bill__Gates (94039)

Bill Gates III (111350)

bill gates1 (113843)

Bill-Gates BillGates@microsoft.com (129481)

and 7 Bruce Perens as well:

Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com (3872)

Bruce Perens. bruce@perens.com (123221)

Bruce_Perens bruce@perens.com (123485)

Bruce.Perens bruce@perens.com (124707)

BrucePerens (145774)

BrucePerens (149861)

! Bruce Perens (150447)

While the arguements could be made that no one would really think Bill Gates would be posting on Slashdot, I think it is pretty clear that Slashdot does not protect a persons idenity at all. (oh yeah there are several "CmdrTaco"s as well.

Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.

All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)

Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.

All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)

Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.

All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)

Bruce

I'd be happy to offer assistance to the people who are pushing this bill, if anyone can put me in touch with the right people.

Thanks

Bruce

Back on topic, I think the use of the GPL by HP make a good for them. It shows that they really want to give the software to the Community instead of using the developpers as a bunch of cheap labors. Why? Because the patch they will receive must be under the GPL (that's a tradition that people send patches back with the same license), so, even if they want to make a non-free version of their soft, they can't incorporate all the contributions in their work, loosing a great deal of work. If they used the BSD or other less restrictive license, the deal will not be so clear. They will still be able to fork the code, included the patches and make their own, enhanced and incompatible non-free version. They can do that also under the GPL but, at least without the fixes coming from the Free Community.

For sure, HP has some interest in publishing those software. But most of this interest came from the Network Effect necessary to establish some standard, open or not. HP chooses the open source way; Good for them, good for us.

As for the BSD license, there is a fair amount of software out there under the BSD license, but there isn't really a whole lot to discuss, since there isn't really a whole lot to violate.

The artistic license isn't used much, so it isn't discussed much.

Why don't slashdotters like BSD? BSD licenses allow code that you write to come under the control of other people, and you can't stop them. You can't even stop them from putting out full page ads saying that their version of your code is better than theirs. Then there's the possibility that your code will become embrace and extendified by some greedy individual, as seems to be happening to kerberos.

As far as problems with the Artistic License, take a look at the OSD as commented by Bruce Perens for some gripes.

The problem with the BSD and the Artistic for me is that I'm not interested in facilitating someone else's proprietary software without getting something back from them - I am only interested in sharing with people who give me the same rights that I give them. I can still make my own proprietary software with my own work, because I hold the copyright and can issue my work with any number of licenses. If I want to use someone else's work in proprietary software, I can buy a license from them, just as I can sell a license to other people who want to make proprietary use of my work. This is hardly anti-commercial. In fact, you could say that the GPL is neutral regarding proprietary work, because it allows you to buy and sell separate commercial licenses and do pretty much what you'd do with conventional software licensing if you wish.

Thanks

Bruce

i can't believe you just posted Bruce's email from an obscure debian mailing list and made it a slashdot headline!

Ok, I agree it wasn't a good idea to post this story. The damage is done. But what's the problem with his email address? firstly, he has a slashdot account with the email in it. Anyone can check this out. Then, if you go to www.perens.com, there's a nice link where you can download his VCard It's not as if it were a big secret, no big deal.
--

If I were you, I'd get ahold of Bruce Perens, either here, or post something to Technocrat.net. Doesn't look like he's gotten wind of this yet.


Note: I would do it myself, but I am way too busy to provide the proper follow-up...

Just delete the "But" and read the paragraph without it.

Thanks

Bruce

The short answer is that it is a better (faster, less buggy, more trustable) way to develop software. People can make money off of services, hardware, etc., rather than directly from sales of proprietary software, so they do that.

Bruce

Bruce Perens[?] didn't share his insights with us this time, but he did post on the Talkback in the article. Click here.

In "Understand my job, please!" you described Bruce Perens's proposal that we have a team of Linux advocates sharing the load as "glib". Could you say more about why you feel this way - isn't it more likely that a job where the load is shared would be more attractive?

Thanks,
--

Our needs included:

portability - the application must be able to run on Windows, Mac, and Linux (if we get other *nixes as a bonus then that's even better)

consistency - the interface must be as consistent as possible across platforms

gui flexibility - the interface must be as customizable as possible

html/XML support - the language or its libraries/runtime must support HTML content, and at least be pledging future support for XML.

After doing our research, and delving into Sun's commitment to Linux, as well as its seeming support for Open Source we decided that Java was likely our best choice. The Swing components seemed to provide the desired customizability and consistency, Java supported HTML and was on its way to XML support, and the Linux support promised would guarantee us a presence on what we deemed the important platforms.

So now it's a year later. The product is designed, mostly written, and really beginning to take shape. We are trying to put together our package to show to potential underwriters but have been plagued by a serious Java issue:

The Windows and Solaris JDK/JRE packages, while still a bit slow and memory-intensive, provide most of the features we need to produce a stable and slick application which can usefully present our content. What bugs there are appear to be hot items ready for fixing in the next release. However, the Linux JDK/JRE packages are not stable, not well-supported, and not even at the same release level as the Windows and Solaris versions.

Month after month we have watched the progress of JDK development (as supposedly supported by Sun) for Linux crawl forward. We have been programming steadily, working around bugs, redesigning interface features to not rely upon features which are not yet present in Linux. Generally acting as if Java2 for Linux is not coming any time soon.

As we watch we have gotten the feeling that, despite press releases to the contrary, Sun could care less whether the Linux JDK ever gets finished, and doesn't appear to be devoting its resources at all towards the platform. Indeed, it seems as if they would prefer people forgot about Linux and its Java port altogether. Here's an example. java.sun.com is Sun's main website devoted to the Java language. Trying to actually find the Linux port from this page takes the patience of Job. Want some help? I'll locate you a few pages down in the right direction. See if you can find it from here. It doesn't help matters that Sun "reorganizes" their Java site periodically, essentially scrambling the links on the page -- reminiscent of the supermarket technique of seemingly random placement of necessities to make one wander through the store, hopefully buying non-necessities (or, similarly, the legendary placement of keys on the QWERTY keyboard to slow down the typist).

"Bad site design" aside, after looking in more desperation for help we noticed other symptoms of "Sun support gone wrong.":

Cryptic messages on Sun's message board about the availabili ty of Linux Java tools

Rumblings on the Blackdown Java port mailing list about lack of progress, with occasional hints that Blackdown is fixing bugs in Sun's code which are getting folded in for later release. While that's great (they should report bugs and the bugs should be fixed in later releases), this forces us to ask the question, "What form is the press-released 'Sun support' taking?" Evidently it's not in the form of programming resources or even $ to support developers.

Additionally, Blackdown appears to be in the lead as far as releases of the JDK go, with IBM purportedly not close to a Java2 JDK, and the other viable options being "for profit" and likely Closed Source. So, this is the net effect of Sun's much publicised "support for Java on Linux"?

This interview, to me, gives me additional reason to doubt Sun's corporate motives. While there are (even discussed on the Linux/Java developers lists) difficulties in porting Solaris thread code to Linux, and difficulties testing graphical components under the numerous X environments available to the Linux end user, if Sun were truly "supporting" the port of Java to Linux this would not really be an issue. Sun could at least provide a more portable reference implementation if nothing else. Gosling is as aware of this as anyone, but uses this as his "out" ("Sun FUD" if you will).

Similarly he straddles the fence by parroting the Sun party line -- why not truly Open Source Java (e.g., GPL it or release it under one of the BSD licenses?)? Well, it really is Open Source, but we have our own proprietary license because we want to maintain platform independence. But, ironically, the fact that Java is not truly Open Source is one of the reasons (determined from hours of sifting through user and developer mailing lists) why it isn't being ported more quickly to Linux. So, the Sun license is guaranteeing (at least for the moment) that Java is NOT platform independent.

Take this together with some reconsideration of the recent StarOffice purchase, and one begins to wonder whether Linux support is, in Sun's eyes, great PR but bad business.

Other software I've written can be found here. And I'm currently writing software - I've made a lot of contributions to the Squishdot forum software in the past week.

So, don't write me off as a writer, please.

Thanks

Bruce

Thanks

Bruce

There's some more history in my "Open Sources" paper here.

Thanks

Bruce

Bruce

There's been some question regarding the legal status of the Open Source certification mark. Although the mark still exists, its application for federal registration has apparently been allowed to lapse, perhaps temporarily. In February, I published It's Time To Talk About Free Software Again , because I felt that the use of the phrase Open Source had caused us to think less about the freedom involved in Free Software. What I said then still stands, and thus I'm ambivalent about the fate of the Open Source certification mark. However, the Open Source Definition is still a good idea. That document has been a very important standard: it's helped us distinguish between licenses that provide a fair return to the free software community for the effort our developers contribute, and those that don't. Many large corporations and individual developers have been influenced to use better licenses because the community insisted that they be OSD-Compliant, and that's helped free software prosper.

Now more than ever, as Free Software finally becomes commercialized, as $100 Million dollar IPOs draw the greedy as well as those who would treat us fairly, it's important that the free software community continue to insist on licenses that comply with the OSD. Our stand on licensing during the next year will make the difference between life and death for free software. Either we maintain the quid-pro-quo, or the developers who have made free software great will leave in disillusionment. Without the fair return to the free software community that the OSD stipulates, we'll be left with will be shareware-with-source, when we can get source at all.

I wrote the OSD with the help of the Debian developers, and it still exists as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. None of the presently-announced Open Source Initiative board members were involved. This isn't to imply anything negative about them, it's just to point out that they aren't essential to the preservation of the OSD. Regardless of what happens with the Open Source trademark and the Open Source Initiative, the author of the OSD and many other members of the free software community will continue to stand behind the Open Source Definition. We will insist on software with OSD-compliant licensing, and we won't donate our efforts to anything else. I hope you'll do the same.

Since there are a lot of newcomers to our community, I guess some of you might not have encountered the Open Source Definition. You can read an extended analysis of the OSD, with commentary, at this link.

Thanks

Bruce Perens

There's been some question regarding the legal status of the Open Source certification mark. Although the mark still exists, its application for federal registration has apparently been allowed to lapse, perhaps temporarily. In February, I published It's Time To Talk About Free Software Again , because I felt that the use of the phrase Open Source had caused us to think less about the freedom involved in Free Software. What I said then still stands, and thus I'm ambivalent about the fate of the Open Source certification mark. However, the Open Source Definition is still a good idea. That document has been a very important standard: it's helped us distinguish between licenses that provide a fair return to the free software community for the effort our developers contribute, and those that don't. Many large corporations and individual developers have been influenced to use better licenses because the community insisted that they be OSD-Compliant, and that's helped free software prosper.

Now more than ever, as Free Software finally becomes commercialized, as $100 Million dollar IPOs draw the greedy as well as those who would treat us fairly, it's important that the free software community continue to insist on licenses that comply with the OSD. Our stand on licensing during the next year will make the difference between life and death for free software. Either we maintain the quid-pro-quo, or the developers who have made free software great will leave in disillusionment. Without the fair return to the free software community that the OSD stipulates, we'll be left with will be shareware-with-source, when we can get source at all.

I wrote the OSD with the help of the Debian developers, and it still exists as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. None of the presently-announced Open Source Initiative board members were involved. This isn't to imply anything negative about them, it's just to point out that they aren't essential to the preservation of the OSD. Regardless of what happens with the Open Source trademark and the Open Source Initiative, the author of the OSD and many other members of the free software community will continue to stand behind the Open Source Definition. We will insist on software with OSD-compliant licensing, and we won't donate our efforts to anything else. I hope you'll do the same.

Since there are a lot of newcomers to our community, I guess some of you might not have encountered the Open Source Definition. You can read an extended analysis of the OSD, with commentary, at this link.

Thanks

Bruce Perens

Want to see a real story? Check this out. Big corporation steals, walks all over the law, and when confronted about it shows only contempt for the accusers, mouthing bald-faced lies about what it is doing.

Bruce

Bruce Perens has asked that we not talk about this see his threat

I'd never been threatened before and really did not know how to react - I think I took it more seriously because of the .signature, which was some Jefferson quote about the pistol being the best form of exercise. That was the next sentence after "Watch your step". Of course Eric is smart enough that he won't ever do anything like this again.

Eric communicated, through Dan Quinlan who was attempting to mediate, that he did not mean violence. At that point, I publicly dropped the issue. Dan did use the words "character defamation" in relaying Eric's message. Of course, it's hard to drop an issue when it's already in a mailing list. Both Eric and I made it clear to Leander at Wired that this was a non-issue. Other journalists, who I guess had more to write about, did drop the story when requested, including ZDNet and all of the various webzines. It felt really ironic having Eric and Brucie had a fight as the top headline at Wired while bombs were falling on Yugoslavia.

I spent part of yesterday patching Electric Fence, there's a new beta on my site. My DSL has been running full out for days serving downloads of the Digital U.S. Street Map, which I hope will seed the development of many free mapping programs. All of this is much more important than any little fight with Eric.

Thanks

Bruce

I'd never been threatened before and really did not know how to react - I think I took it more seriously because of the .signature, which was some Jefferson quote about the pistol being the best form of exercise. That was the next sentence after "Watch your step". Of course Eric is smart enough that he won't ever do anything like this again.

Eric communicated, through Dan Quinlan who was attempting to mediate, that he did not mean violence. At that point, I publicly dropped the issue. Dan did use the words "character defamation" in relaying Eric's message. Of course, it's hard to drop an issue when it's already in a mailing list. Both Eric and I made it clear to Leander at Wired that this was a non-issue. Other journalists, who I guess had more to write about, did drop the story when requested, including ZDNet and all of the various webzines. It felt really ironic having Eric and Brucie had a fight as the top headline at Wired while bombs were falling on Yugoslavia.

I spent part of yesterday patching Electric Fence, there's a new beta on my site. My DSL has been running full out for days serving downloads of the Digital U.S. Street Map, which I hope will seed the development of many free mapping programs. All of this is much more important than any little fight with Eric.

Thanks

Bruce

I'd never been threatened before and really did not know how to react - I think I took it more seriously because of the .signature, which was some Jefferson quote about the pistol being the best form of exercise. That was the next sentence after "Watch your step". Of course Eric is smart enough that he won't ever do anything like this again.

Eric communicated, through Dan Quinlan who was attempting to mediate, that he did not mean violence. At that point, I publicly dropped the issue. Dan did use the words "character defamation" in relaying Eric's message. Of course, it's hard to drop an issue when it's already in a mailing list. Both Eric and I made it clear to Leander at Wired that this was a non-issue. Other journalists, who I guess had more to write about, did drop the story when requested, including ZDNet and all of the various webzines. It felt really ironic having Eric and Brucie had a fight as the top headline at Wired while bombs were falling on Yugoslavia.

I spent part of yesterday patching Electric Fence, there's a new beta on my site. My DSL has been running full out for days serving downloads of the Digital U.S. Street Map, which I hope will seed the development of many free mapping programs. All of this is much more important than any little fight with Eric.

Thanks

Bruce

First he starts by admitting that, no, he did not really mean "take my job please" when he said "take my job please." As many of us suspected, it was a slightly underhand way of saying "shut up and stop criticizing me."

Secondly, I disagree with his constant calls to stop criticising people. If somebody does something you disagree with, by all means, say so. Say so civilly, not with flames, but say so nonetheless.

His whole tone seems a bit condescending and presumptious. The constant references to "we," as if he speaks for the entire Free Software community, are annoying, and so are the references to "Slashdot kiddies" (many of whom include prominent people in the tech world).

His off-hand dismissal of Bruce Perens's well-written and well-reasoned essay is disappointing. None of the points in Perens's essay are addressed. It would seem that Mr. Raymond is afraid to take the points into consideration.

I wholeheartedly disagree with his entire premise regarding the APSL debate. He criticizes the Perens open letter and RMS's reply about it, and says they should've been private rather than public. That is incorrect. OSI's decision regarding the matter was public, so it follows that all commentary on that decision should be public. In addition, the APSL is a license that will impact the Free Software community, so it is important and desirable that the Free Software community be allowed to discuss the effects and possible problems of the license amongst itself. Stifling such discussion to save the ego of one man is not acceptable.

Bruce

The Apple Public Source License - Our Concerns Bruce Perens , Primary Author: The Open Source Definition. Co-Founder: The Open Source Initiative.
Wichert Akkerman: Debian Project Leader.
Ian Jackson: President, Software in the Public Interest. Author, Debian package installation tool `dpkg'.

We welcome Apple Computer, Inc. as a participant in the Free Software Community. We feel that a few problems in the present version of the Apple Public Source License (the APSL) disqualify it as "Open Source(TM)" or "Free Software". We hope that Apple can address these issues to everyone's satisfaction.

The participation of companies like Apple and IBM should be considered in the same way as the participation of any free software developer. Everyone is welcome to make a contribution. Individually, we each decide whether or not to accept a particular developer's contribution, for reasons that range from technical to legal and licensing concerns. We openly discuss these issues before our community, often quite harshly, as a means of developing consensus and charting our course. One consensus that we've reached is the Open Source Definition, a generally accepted definition of Free Software licensing, written by Bruce Perens and the Debian GNU/Linux developers in 1997.

We note that much of the material that Apple has just released under the APSL originated at The University of California, Berkeley and at Carnegie-Mellon University. That work was sponsored by the U.S. Government, paid for with our taxes, and was already available as Free Software under the BSD license and other well-accepted Open Source licenses. Many of these files do not significantly differ from the pre-Apple versions except that they bear the addition of a new copyright and license. Other files are entirely authored by Apple or bear significant modifications that should indeed be considered Apple's property. Where Apple has not significantly modified individual files from their pre-Apple versions, their original licenses should be preserved without the addition of the APSL.

Section 2.2(c) of the APSL requires that the producer of modifications to APSL-licensed code use a particular URL in the Apple.com domain to notify Apple. While the demise of Apple Computer, Inc. is unlikely in the near future, that sad event would leave us unable to comply with this section of the APSL. This would constitute a restriction on all rights granted by the license, including those rights necessary to qualify under the Open Source Definition. The Free Software community plans a very long lifetime for its software, and we hope that Apple will cooperate by changing this provision so that APSL-licensed software could survive without Apple. We suggest that the simple publication of modifications, such as posting on a personal web site accessible to the global internet and pointed out in any binary distributions, be all that is required. This is consistent with other licenses in our community.

Section 9.1 of the APSL allows Apple to terminate our rights to use any or all APSL-covered code, at its sole discretion, in the event of an unproven claim of infringement, no matter how specious. This is derived from a similar objectionable portion of IBM's Jikes license, which disqualified that license from being referred to as "Open Source". We hope that Apple will consider the investment that members of the Free Software community will put into APSL-licensed code when they write modifications for it. An arbitrary termination could cause us to suddenly lose that investment at some future date, with no chance for appeal. The licenses accepted by our community do not provide the possibility of termination in this manner. If termination due to an infringement claim is to be allowed at all, it should be explicitly limited to the particular source-code lines that are considered to infringe upon an existing patent. This would make it possible for the free software community to "write around the problem" and create a non-infringing version. The authors of the APSL apparently did not consider that patents expire. It should be possible for us to store infringing code for restoral to use upon the expiration of the patent in question. Apple might also consider if it's possible to allow third-parties to defend the disputed code from an infringement claim that would cause us all to lose our rights under the APSL.

We also regret to note that that Eric Raymond, with the best of intentions, jumped a little too fast to embrace the APSL in his enthusiasm to welcome Apple to our community. He placed the Open Source designation on a license that wasn't quite ready for that. We invite Eric and other members of the Free Software community to join us in requesting the few simple changes to the APSL that we have outlined in this letter.

Contact: Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> 510-526-1165 (USA) Links to Relevant Information

• The Open Source Definition.
• The Debian Free Software Guidelines, from which the Open Source Definition is derived.
• Is Your Software In Danger of Termination, an open letter on the topic of license termination.
• Debian GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd Distribution.
• Software in the Public Interest.

Bruce

The Apple Public Source License - Our Concerns Bruce Perens , Primary Author: The Open Source Definition. Co-Founder: The Open Source Initiative.
Wichert Akkerman: Debian Project Leader.
Ian Jackson: President, Software in the Public Interest. Author, Debian package installation tool `dpkg'.

We welcome Apple Computer, Inc. as a participant in the Free Software Community. We feel that a few problems in the present version of the Apple Public Source License (the APSL) disqualify it as "Open Source(TM)" or "Free Software". We hope that Apple can address these issues to everyone's satisfaction.

The participation of companies like Apple and IBM should be considered in the same way as the participation of any free software developer. Everyone is welcome to make a contribution. Individually, we each decide whether or not to accept a particular developer's contribution, for reasons that range from technical to legal and licensing concerns. We openly discuss these issues before our community, often quite harshly, as a means of developing consensus and charting our course. One consensus that we've reached is the Open Source Definition, a generally accepted definition of Free Software licensing, written by Bruce Perens and the Debian GNU/Linux developers in 1997.

We note that much of the material that Apple has just released under the APSL originated at The University of California, Berkeley and at Carnegie-Mellon University. That work was sponsored by the U.S. Government, paid for with our taxes, and was already available as Free Software under the BSD license and other well-accepted Open Source licenses. Many of these files do not significantly differ from the pre-Apple versions except that they bear the addition of a new copyright and license. Other files are entirely authored by Apple or bear significant modifications that should indeed be considered Apple's property. Where Apple has not significantly modified individual files from their pre-Apple versions, their original licenses should be preserved without the addition of the APSL.

Section 2.2(c) of the APSL requires that the producer of modifications to APSL-licensed code use a particular URL in the Apple.com domain to notify Apple. While the demise of Apple Computer, Inc. is unlikely in the near future, that sad event would leave us unable to comply with this section of the APSL. This would constitute a restriction on all rights granted by the license, including those rights necessary to qualify under the Open Source Definition. The Free Software community plans a very long lifetime for its software, and we hope that Apple will cooperate by changing this provision so that APSL-licensed software could survive without Apple. We suggest that the simple publication of modifications, such as posting on a personal web site accessible to the global internet and pointed out in any binary distributions, be all that is required. This is consistent with other licenses in our community.

Section 9.1 of the APSL allows Apple to terminate our rights to use any or all APSL-covered code, at its sole discretion, in the event of an unproven claim of infringement, no matter how specious. This is derived from a similar objectionable portion of IBM's Jikes license, which disqualified that license from being referred to as "Open Source". We hope that Apple will consider the investment that members of the Free Software community will put into APSL-licensed code when they write modifications for it. An arbitrary termination could cause us to suddenly lose that investment at some future date, with no chance for appeal. The licenses accepted by our community do not provide the possibility of termination in this manner. If termination due to an infringement claim is to be allowed at all, it should be explicitly limited to the particular source-code lines that are considered to infringe upon an existing patent. This would make it possible for the free software community to "write around the problem" and create a non-infringing version. The authors of the APSL apparently did not consider that patents expire. It should be possible for us to store infringing code for restoral to use upon the expiration of the patent in question. Apple might also consider if it's possible to allow third-parties to defend the disputed code from an infringement claim that would cause us all to lose our rights under the APSL.

We also regret to note that that Eric Raymond, with the best of intentions, jumped a little too fast to embrace the APSL in his enthusiasm to welcome Apple to our community. He placed the Open Source designation on a license that wasn't quite ready for that. We invite Eric and other members of the Free Software community to join us in requesting the few simple changes to the APSL that we have outlined in this letter.

Contact: Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> 510-526-1165 (USA) Links to Relevant Information

• The Open Source Definition.
• The Debian Free Software Guidelines, from which the Open Source Definition is derived.
• Is Your Software In Danger of Termination, an open letter on the topic of license termination.
• Debian GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd Distribution.
• Software in the Public Interest.

Bruce

The Apple Public Source License - Our Concerns Bruce Perens , Primary Author: The Open Source Definition. Co-Founder: The Open Source Initiative.
Wichert Akkerman: Debian Project Leader.
Ian Jackson: President, Software in the Public Interest. Author, Debian package installation tool `dpkg'.

We welcome Apple Computer, Inc. as a participant in the Free Software Community. We feel that a few problems in the present version of the Apple Public Source License (the APSL) disqualify it as "Open Source(TM)" or "Free Software". We hope that Apple can address these issues to everyone's satisfaction.

The participation of companies like Apple and IBM should be considered in the same way as the participation of any free software developer. Everyone is welcome to make a contribution. Individually, we each decide whether or not to accept a particular developer's contribution, for reasons that range from technical to legal and licensing concerns. We openly discuss these issues before our community, often quite harshly, as a means of developing consensus and charting our course. One consensus that we've reached is the Open Source Definition, a generally accepted definition of Free Software licensing, written by Bruce Perens and the Debian GNU/Linux developers in 1997.

We note that much of the material that Apple has just released under the APSL originated at The University of California, Berkeley and at Carnegie-Mellon University. That work was sponsored by the U.S. Government, paid for with our taxes, and was already available as Free Software under the BSD license and other well-accepted Open Source licenses. Many of these files do not significantly differ from the pre-Apple versions except that they bear the addition of a new copyright and license. Other files are entirely authored by Apple or bear significant modifications that should indeed be considered Apple's property. Where Apple has not significantly modified individual files from their pre-Apple versions, their original licenses should be preserved without the addition of the APSL.

Section 2.2(c) of the APSL requires that the producer of modifications to APSL-licensed code use a particular URL in the Apple.com domain to notify Apple. While the demise of Apple Computer, Inc. is unlikely in the near future, that sad event would leave us unable to comply with this section of the APSL. This would constitute a restriction on all rights granted by the license, including those rights necessary to qualify under the Open Source Definition. The Free Software community plans a very long lifetime for its software, and we hope that Apple will cooperate by changing this provision so that APSL-licensed software could survive without Apple. We suggest that the simple publication of modifications, such as posting on a personal web site accessible to the global internet and pointed out in any binary distributions, be all that is required. This is consistent with other licenses in our community.

Section 9.1 of the APSL allows Apple to terminate our rights to use any or all APSL-covered code, at its sole discretion, in the event of an unproven claim of infringement, no matter how specious. This is derived from a similar objectionable portion of IBM's Jikes license, which disqualified that license from being referred to as "Open Source". We hope that Apple will consider the investment that members of the Free Software community will put into APSL-licensed code when they write modifications for it. An arbitrary termination could cause us to suddenly lose that investment at some future date, with no chance for appeal. The licenses accepted by our community do not provide the possibility of termination in this manner. If termination due to an infringement claim is to be allowed at all, it should be explicitly limited to the particular source-code lines that are considered to infringe upon an existing patent. This would make it possible for the free software community to "write around the problem" and create a non-infringing version. The authors of the APSL apparently did not consider that patents expire. It should be possible for us to store infringing code for restoral to use upon the expiration of the patent in question. Apple might also consider if it's possible to allow third-parties to defend the disputed code from an infringement claim that would cause us all to lose our rights under the APSL.

We also regret to note that that Eric Raymond, with the best of intentions, jumped a little too fast to embrace the APSL in his enthusiasm to welcome Apple to our community. He placed the Open Source designation on a license that wasn't quite ready for that. We invite Eric and other members of the Free Software community to join us in requesting the few simple changes to the APSL that we have outlined in this letter.

Contact: Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> 510-526-1165 (USA) Links to Relevant Information

• The Open Source Definition.
• The Debian Free Software Guidelines, from which the Open Source Definition is derived.
• Is Your Software In Danger of Termination, an open letter on the topic of license termination.
• Debian GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd Distribution.
• Software in the Public Interest.